Weekend wrap-up

Apologies for being so slack with the posting but I’m back now. Last Saturday Brendan and I met at Eltham and, rather than slogging it out to Kinglake again, decided to grab the mountain bikes and head down to the trails. We had initially planned to thrash it out along the trails at Westerfolds but we ended up riding for two and a half hours, following the seemingly endless trails that run alongside the Main Yarra Trail. There are some truly spectacular paths along there and we had an awesome day.

I managed to stack three times throughout the day. None of them were serious and you can see the last spill on the video that accompanies this post. Turning a corner I rode through a puddle of mud and the back wheel slid out, throwing me into the tree. You can’t really see it in the video but my head hit the tree as I came to a stop. It didn’t hurt at all and it was more funny than anything else. You can see Brendan ahead of me laughing his head off.

It was a muddy affair down on the trails and when we got back our bikes were plastered in mud. We have found that changing it up a little with the MTBs keeps the process interesting. As much as we love climbing and the thrill of the descent, long flat rides just don’t seem to be our thing. Maybe that’s why we haven’t done nearly enough training for this beast of a ride in less than three weeks.
I’ve spoken to a few people about the route and it seems to be that the last climb back into Falls Creek is going to be the hardest. I’m genuinely nervous about the ride but I suspect that once we get up there and start riding adrenaline might help a little. Whether it gets us through the ride I don’t know but we can only hope.

Route: Eltham to SouthbankDistance: 26.6kmDuration: 59 minutes

On Sunday morning I thrashed out another early morning commute. It was dark, cold and wet when I left the house but that didn’t stop it being a fairly enjoyable ride. I can feel myself getting stronger and while I’m not shaving heaps of time off my commute, I feel like the hills are less of a problem each time.

So, in two days time Brendan and I are heading up to Bright for a five day suffer-fest. I just can’t describe how phenomenal the area is for cycling and for any cyclist that hasn’t been up there, what are you waiting for?! We are planning on doing several longer rides and maybe a couple shorter ones too but I’m just hoping that it gives us enough strength and fitness to get through the 3 Peaks Challenge.